Matthew's Absurdity Blog

2011年7月31日 星期日

That's what feminists and many so-called "peace groups" tell us all the time.

What exactly is equality? What do they actually mean when they say they are seeking "equality"?

1) Marxist equality

-Anyone, regardless of productivities or any other features, should receive the same treatment.

The first type of equality, as the Soviet Union had indicated, simply won't work, because of the fact that people would become "free-riders", and this is going to be disastrous the economy. With productivity being abysmally low, nobody is going to be happy. If this is what they mean by equality, I am certain that this kind of people will not do any good for us. Fortunately, judging from what they do, they don't seem to be so.

2) Statistical equality

-All groups of people should be statistically equal in ALL aspects of life.

This is total nonsense. Just take STEM as an example. Assuming that men are innately better at these subjects. If equal number of men and women attend STEM courses, then it follows that men are handicapped in some ways or women are compensated in some ways. Now that's the problem: Either way, there will be some economic loss, because some resources have been wasted, and it is not creating any additional value for us. No matter what, resources are wasted.
In other words, chasing statistical equality is simply going to waste a lot of resources. Imagine two countries, A and B. People in A spend a lot of money in seeking statistical equality, while those in B don't. Assume all other factors being constant, B will end up being more affluent that A, because it simply waste much less resources than A. The consequence will be that A will lose the competition with B, and people in A will either migrate to B, or change their nations to be more like B, or die. Many activist group seems to be seeking this form of equality. I would say that what they do are, in fact, quite harmful for our society.

3) Eqaulity of opportunity

-The assignment of individuals to places in social hierarchy is determined purely by competition.

At first glance, this is the only type of equality out of the three that seems to make any sense. However, I noticed that as one drill down to this, this form of equality becomes quite hopeless, indeed.
Let say, should men earn more than women?
No matter you answer "yes" or "no", it seems that you are not going to reach the criteria of equality of opportunity. This is because even if men are indeed more efficient than women, one may argue that it is because women are handicapped in some ways relative to men. Similarly, if men earn less than women, than you can still argue that men are handicapped. Moreover, we can never know if we have given enough support for all people such that they are "not handicapped". For example, even if we give completely equal support for everyone, you may still argue that some people perform less well because the type of support given to them are not qualitatively suitable for them, they are disadvantaged in some other ways, etc.
In addition, even if we manage to find all factors that can impair performance, we would still have little clue as to whether they did contribute to the poorer performance at all, because we simply cannot obtain information about all of them and to calculate their overall effects.
See? The debate is endless, and I seriously doubt if it is possible to yield any fruits at all. It is absolutely hopeless, at least with our current technology. If we seek this type of equality, then we are doomed to waste a lot of time (and money). It doesn't sound like it is going to be good for us.

Conclusion

As one can see, equality, despite being a very popular notion, is very doubtful regarding its execution. If equality is nothing but a spam, then it follows that chasing it is not going to bring us any good at all. Instead, if we abandon the so-called "equality", I think our society will be more properous, and if we don't do so, what will happen is simply identical to that between A and B.

2011年7月29日 星期五

One of the most familiar aspects of feminism is the perpetual victimhood of women. For example, feminists keep blaming patriarchy and men for what women did, and strangely, such blaming seems to be endless. If a woman is beaten by a man, feminists would say that he is a violent thug. If a woman beat up a man (usually with weapons), feminists would say that he did something that cause her to do so. Either way, the woman is the perceived victim.

Why is the feminist theory so interesting?

The reason is simple: almost everything that happens are co-caused by both men and women. When a woman get beaten (this is relatively rare compared to a man being beaten), it is quite typical that she actually did something to provoke that man. For instance, it was reported that wife killing is particularly likely to happen during divorce, in which the woman is highly likely to be falsely accusing of her husband or emotionally abusing him in some ways. Thus, in this case, both the man and the woman should have responsibilities, because both of them did something that they could choose not to do and lead to the unhappy result. Similarly, when a husband was killed, it is likely that he may have done something that provoke the woman in some ways. Quite frankly, the vast majority of the problems we are facing are co-caused by both men and women. Let's see the following example:

1) Government spent a hell lot more money on women's health

-Certainly, men's disproportionately higher rate of premature deaths has something to do with their testosterone. However, if women didn't keep claiming victimhood and grabbed all the health funds away, this problem wouldn't have been so serious.

2) Women, in general, were not given direct power

-True, men loved power, but quite frankly, psychologists have found that women preferred to exert indirect power, that is, they prefer to manipulate powerful figures into helping them do their bidding. Plus, women, not all, but in general make a lot of irrational decisions. I simply don't think we should give irrational people too much direct power (or else it is disastor for us). So I am pretty sure that women's relative lack of direct power have something to do with themselves.

As one can see, almost all problems are co-caused by both men and women. The feminist trick is to focus on how men contribute to the problems and hide how women co-cause it, creating the illusion that women are not guilty of anything. However, what is the point in perpetually blaming one of the genders for all the problems while we know both of them contribute to the problems?

Conclusion

I have noticed why women appear to be perpetual victims under the feminist theory. The answer is rather simply: because both men and women contribute to the problems they are facing, therefore it is always possible to blame one of the genders for all the problems by focusing on how that gender contributes to them, and feminist chose to blame men.

2011年7月28日 星期四

I guess many of you have heard of women being liars. No, I am not going to talk about the lies women told as individuals, but those that they told about their own genders. For any women or feminists who read this article, I am certain that you will be likely to boil in rage, so feel free to give any irrational comments or personal attacks. For any anti-feminists who read this, I am glad to tell you that you would probably agree with most of the contents in this article. For any men who still think that women are the innocent angels they portray themselves to be, I am also glad to tell you that you would probably find this article enlightening. Let's see the things women tell us about their gender:

1. Women are/were oppressed.

Let's talk about the current situation. Well, if you see some statistics, you will know that in almost men parts of the world, women have lower suicide rate (The typical gender ratio is 2:1 to 3:1), lower substance abuse rate, lower chance of committing crimes, lower chance of being assaulted or murdered, lower rate of premature death, when compared to men. Even depression rate has recently been doubted, with some researchers suggesting that women report but not experience more depression.
All these are signs of privileges, rather than oppression. For example, whites have lower suicide rate, etc. than African American. Similarly, homosexuals have higher substance abuse rate, etc. compared to heterosexuals. When black people and gay people exhibit the above patterns, we say that they are minority groups, but how come nobody cares when men exhibit the above patterns? How exactly can an oppressed class appear to be living so much more happily than their oppressors?

Based on these results, I seriously doubt if women are truly a minority group at all. True, they may be disadvantaged in some ways, but it seems to me that what women experience is pretty far from what you could call "oppression". It is also notable that men in almost all parts of the world have shorter life, although currently biologists still fail to find any intrinsic reasons why this should be true. Of course, these statistics are true even in India and Islamic countries.
It seems that women lead a far more stress-free life than men do (and did). So, the only things they can complain about are education and political power. In the past, education resources were scarce. Thus, if a person would like to receive education, he or she will be obliqued to work afterwards. Which gender would be more likely to want to retire from work to have children? The female gender, I suppose. Therefore, I am pretty sure that women's lack of educational opportunity in the past have something to do with their own choices, rather than purely being men's decision, and the same goes for political power.

Let's look into history then. After all, it was men who were enslaved (the vast majority of black slaves are black men), who were sent to die in wars, who ended up doing all the most dangerous and deadly labor (e.g. mining), and we all know that most parts of the world have chivalry or its variants, through which men who aggress against women are in general, despised upon, but they usually don't give a fxxk when a woman hurted a man (actually, men being aggressed against by women were usually ridiculed).
Plus, it was well-documented in psychology that BOTH male and female tend to treat male more harshly, regardless of their victims' misbehaviors. This finding is cross-cultural, so this suggests that it probably has a biological basis. Therefore, it is quite likely that this is still the case even in the past, with both men and women from upper classes exerting more oppression on men from lower classes. So, I didn't see how women could have been more oppressed than men throughout history.
The illusion of women being the oppressed gender is due to the fact that women love to whine about victimhood, and women's suffering are frequently highlighted, and often exaggerated. In contrast, men who suffer (especially those who suffer in the hands of women) are hidden from view at a massive scale.

2. Women are not violent nor aggressive.

This is totally ridiculous. Psychology have already told us that women are much more likely to use indirect aggression than men do. "Indirect aggression" means that they make use of lies, manipulations and rumors to cause others to aggress against their victims. For instance, a woman may lie to her boyfriend to cause him to beat up another man (e.g. "he touched my breast!"), and it seems that men's cognitive capacity are seriously impaired when faced with women's whining, maybe due to some biological problems. They may also use rumors to humiliate people, inducing anger and therefore aggression. Thus, women are DEFINITELY NOT as peace-loving as they portray themselves to be.
The illusion of women being not aggressive is that they are, statistically speaking, more "hypocritical". Research have well-documented that women are better at "suppressing aggression". That's mean, although they still have desires to aggress, they are not likely to show it. In other words, when a person is being nice to you, this niceness would be more likely to be genuine if that person is a man. In other words, women are simply better at pretending to be nice and then stab you in the back, statistically speaking.

Moreover, women love violent men. They implicitly tend to be turned on by men who exert violence and dominance on others (usually on weaker males). Therefore, they in general would reinforce these men to exert violence on gentle men or weaker men, and we all know sexual access to women is highly reinforcing to such men. So, do women contribute nothing to violence? I suspect not.

3. Women are the fairer sex

Eh, is this supposed to be a joke? Women are also very competitive. True, men are more competitive if it is a chess game or something, but I am pretty sure that you woud obtain the opposite results if it is a beauty contest. Plus, intersex and intrasex equality are two different things.
Women may be more fair when it is an issue among women, but do they like to treat men as their equals? I suspect not. Researchers found that home-schooled children show no gender difference in exam grades, and girls are doing better in the current education system. What does this tell us about our education system? Let me see, women tell us that they want a fair fight. Well, they certainly are fair, aren't they?

If women are sooo fair, why don't they try what men experienced? For example, why don't they do something to make their suicide rate twice of that of men? Why don't they try being left behind and see the opposite gender getting on the lifeboats (just like what happened in Titanic and the Japanese Earthquake)? Why don't they try being forced to do the most odious labor on earth? Why don't they try being obliqued to sacrifice their lives to protect their spouses? And women tell us that they are the fairer sex?
What a joke. A frequent observation is that women showed concern about what I said and then go back to continue to "empower" their own gender. It seems that women are simply better at pretending to play fair and then grab all the goodies away.

Conclusion

If you are a woman, I think it is highly likely that you are already furious and perhaps would like to strangle me. Feel free to spit any venoms at me, because by doing so you will expose the truth of your gender. Women are and were usually privileged, they are indeed violent and they are the most unfair creatures on earth. All these good things women told about themselves are nothing but lies upon lies. They are simply trying to take all the goodies away with a facade of innocence.

2011年6月4日 星期六

One of the most highly valued thing in nowaday society seems to be so-called "human rights". Basically, no matter what those activists do, claiming that they are defending human rights alone can bring them huge support (and of course the funds). For instance, gay activists constantly claim that being accepted as normal citizens is basic human rights, and therefore demand "equal" rights.

This is not going to do us any good.

One of the very first assumptions of "goodness" of absolute freedom is that humans are rational creatures. This statement is obviously flawed. More importantly, making choices can be costly. Imagine the following scenario:

A person is choosing which subjects as his major. He is given a variety of choices, but he has no idea what subjects is going to be suitable for him, so he randomly picks one at first, then keep switching majors until he finds one that he seems to like.

University Education requires government funding. So imagine what would happen if thousands of people are doing the same thing, and we all know that our resources are limited. If we waste so much money on these people, the old and the sick is going to receive less funding to help them. That's the key of my problem with those so-callled "freedom": In real world, letting people make choices freely is going to cost us resources, and the amount is far from negligible.
Therefore, it follows that there should be a point at which freedom and restriction are well balanced such that human happiness is going to be maximized. It is obvious that limitlessly raise freedom people have will definitely not bring us to this point.

Conclusion

I don't think endlessly demand freedom is going to do us any good. Instead, it is probably not going to creating anything but misery and misallocation of resources. One of the greatest reasons people seem to mindlessly support the so-called "human rights" is that it appears to induce intense emotions in us such that people in general stop doubting if what they do is correct.

I am really beginning to wonder why being emotional seems to be associated so strongly with poor decision making.

2011年6月1日 星期三

Recently, I have heard of a fancy term called "feminization of poverty", which is defined as the so-called fact that women are disproportionately likely to become impoverished. For example, feminists claimed that women around the world are about twice as likely to be of low income than are men.

Does this indicate some forms of "oppression"?

I doubt it.

First of all, I am wondering how many men are maltreated so seriously that they don't show up in the statistics. For instance, they are probably killed or migrated (usually to act as slaves), and we all know that men have higher mortality rate in the workplace. Indeed, the following article reports that women's higher "incidence" of poverty concentrates in older age groups, to a certain extent supporting this hypothesis.

This article also indicates that there are very little direct scientific evidence supporting the so-called "feminization of poverty".

A more interesting fact is that I have noticed two features of article talking about "feminization of poverty": emotional-ness and lack of objectivity. All of them (as far as I have read) use a lot of emotional words that tend to arouse sympathy to the "victims" and very few of them actually cite any objective statistics to support their points. If they are telling the truth, why are they so reluctant to give us statistics, which, would support their positions if what they say are true?
Even more curiously, none of these articles have told me how did they obtain their "statistics". This along with the fact that feminists have a habit of distorting the truth have made me become very suspicious of the so-called "feminization of poverty".

Conclusion

The summary is as usual: I am quite sceptical of feminists claiming that they are addressing inequalities. In fact, the converse may be true. Of course I am not saying that the feminization of poverty is definitely false, but with the current lack of "evidence" in hand, I am rather reluctant to support their positions, nor am I ready to join those campaigns.